Let Me Forget About Today Until Tomorrow
by sunsetdreamer
Summary: Genius scientists have their own special brand of therapy. A two part look into old traumas and creative healing. Happy belated Birthday, RositaLG!
1. Chapter 1

May 16th was RositaLG's quarter century birthday, and though I was ahead of schedule for once in my life and finished her fic WEEKS in advance, my computer broke down a couple days before it and I couldn't access said fic. And then she wandered away for a month. And then we realised yesterday she never got the message I left her, telling her to let me know when she wanted this posted. So here it is, late, but written with love. Because nothing makes birthdays special like celebrating them with online folks while you avoid real life ones. Happy belated birthday, friend.

Things you should know; 1) This is a two shot. The second part needs minor tweaking but it will be up later today. 2) There are little details throughout that are no longer quite canon (daycare, for one); I wrote this well before the season wrapped up, so please just roll with it.

* * *

**Let Me Forget About Today Until Tomorrow**

A heart that's full up like a landfill  
A job that slowly kills you  
Bruises that won't heal

**No Surprises, **Radiohead

_In one of the worst moment of her young life she's locked in the trunk of a car and she goes between fits of panic and fits of tears so rapidly, she's voiceless and wracked by tremors before the end of day one. Not that she realises this. She can't keep track of time. _

_She's always been studious, oddly so, even when she had parents. But with their disappearance her need for constant academic stimulation reaches unparalleled heights. She can't be still. Can't rest her brain. If she doesn't keep her head full of statistics and numbers and facts, she slips and these flashes of another life, a __**happy **__life, come trickling in and it's all far too much. So in this trunk, where it is just her and the dark, the punishment is mental and physical and it pushes her to the brink of her sanity._

_She goes in on a Saturday night and comes out on a Tuesday morning, and fifteen years from now she'll lie to Booth when she tells him she's never received a B. Because on the Monday afternoon she misses a math test and she's not allowed to make it up. Incomplete. The word is written next to her name in blood red ink and she cries in the high school bathroom for twenty minutes because the nightmare won't end. _

_Years pass and she becomes a different person. A better person. A strong person. The girl she had once been is so far behind her that when the memory repeats itself, when she finds herself locked in a car buried underground slowly slowly slowly suffocating, she doesn't even consciously make the connection between the two events._

_But her mind, which has always been so, so fast, eventually does._

_She dreams of terrible things. Of darkness and tight spaces and the gruesome deaths of people she loves. She dreams of running out of air. She dreams of the smell of vomit (because when she tells Booth that she doesn't vomit, what she really means is she doesn't vomit __**anymore**__), and it brings back that night with a clarity that would surprise her if she could remember any of the specifics for longer than it takes to wake up._

_She's a different person. A better person. A strong person. She hasn't found this place by allowing her emotions and memories to run free. So more often than not, after bad dreams she wakes to her heart beating rapidly, her body covered in sweat, and the gritty taste of earth and stifling dust only foggily remaining._

_But that darkness presses on her._

_She dreams of terrible things._

* * *

They haven't slept in days. It's not a new thing for either of them, especially toward the end of a case, but their daughter is not quite six months old and they're still learning how to balance caring for her with doing their jobs. So Booth hasn't slept much and Brennan's slept even less, because the anxieties concerning Christine are difficult to compartmentalise and when she picks her baby up, it's still so hard to put her down.

The steady motion of the car proves too rhythmic for Brennan and she begins to nod off, only to be jolted back into consciousness when her head falls forward and thumps rather painfully against the window. She jerks upright and immediately glances at her partner in the driver's seat; Booth's tight smile makes it clear she hasn't escaped his notice, but he's too preoccupied to tease her and her heart hurts too badly to dwell on the why.

Brennan rubs her forehead and stares through the windshield. Two vehicles ahead of them is a police cruiser, and in the backseat is their murderer. She thinks about what he's done and her skin itches with rage while her eyes burn.

Booth clears his throat. "Getting a statement won't take long."

"It hardly matters now, does it?" she mutters bitterly.

He doesn't speak again. Neither does she.

* * *

They solve a case. She finds the evidence he needs to make an arrest and he makes that arrest, but she shakes her head and gives him a half hearted excuse when he begins to lead her to the interrogation room.

And he gives her a look.

There's no denying that she usually loves this part. That she has fought him hard to be included on a regular basis. But she has no desire to be here.

He knows why.

So he gives her arm a light squeeze and tells her he'll meet her at home, because this is the part that will always be his job and though she so often chooses to share the burden of the _why_, it isn't actually hers to bear. She's entitled to take a step back and regroup.

For all her anthropological education, all the places she's travelled and horrors she's seen, she's always torn apart by the atrocities human beings _choose _to inflict on one another.

She can't put her heart in a box when faced with dead children anymore. Dead babies. Not when she's just had one of her own. She's lost that part of herself and on days like today, it's difficult to silence the tiny part of her that questions whether it's worth it.

* * *

Booth will be hours yet, between the interrogation and the booking and the paperwork he'll try his best to finish at the office so that he doesn't have to bring it home. Brennan has work of her own to complete and two sets of tiny remains to secure one last time, but she finds herself detouring through the daycare centre on her way back to her office.

Christine is healthy. Happy to see her. She reaches for Brennan's face and squeezes her cheek with small, strong fingers, and she laughs the moment Brennan's mouth stretches into a smile.

It's selfish, so selfish, to burden her child with the task of banishing the darkness that is trying (and damn near succeeding) to suffocate her. But in her arms is this piece of herself who doesn't know anything but love, and she simultaneously feels the need to keep her close (in hopes of some sort of transference to ease the pain in her chest), as well as the compulsion to push her away (and keep from tainting her).

Christine ultimately makes the decision for her when the happy smile fades from her face and she begins to fuss. Not particularly hard, but enough for Brennan to know that if she isn't fed within the next ten minutes, everyone in the vicinity is going to hear about it.

The baby is nearly six months old and just shy of fully weaned; breast feedings have been reduced to once before she's put down for the night. Brennan isn't quite ready to give up this bonding entirely.

Soon, but not yet.

She generally appreciates routine and she knows the daycare centre is more than capable of feeding her daughter, but she thinks that adjusting Christine's nursing schedule just this once can't possibly cause either one of them any permanent damage. She needs her. She can admit now that while she's always survived, while she's always known how to move on and move forward, it's relieving not to have to. It's relieving to be less than strong and still maintain relative certainty that things will ultimately be okay.

Christine quiets as Brennan walks, and soon she's gurgling happily again and experimenting with sounds in that manner which makes Brennan eager to hear the first words only months away from emerging. But her life has revolved around this baby for five and a half months now and she knows this is the calm before the storm. Christine warns her when she's hungry and then she reverts to her happy self, but when the fussing begins anew there will be no calming her.

Only, when Brennan enters the lab, the rest of the team is still congregated in her office.

She can't bring herself to be around any of them right now; not even for the amount of time it would take to kick them out. She's determined to keep this one thing, this one moment of the day between her and her daughter that will so soon be over forever, preserved without flaw. When she walks into Angela's office she's already reaching under her shirt with one hand while cradling Christine with the other – she's always been adept at multitasking, but the number of things she can do with one hand has increased exponentially since having a baby – and she doesn't notice Hodgins and Michael already occupying the room until she's fully entered it.

"Whoa, Dr. B, warn a guy before you bust those out."

Hodgins averts his eyes and the words are light and teasing, but she recognises the strain in his tone because she has heard it in her own every time she has opened her mouth to speak in the last 24 hours.

"Breastfeeding is a natural process. I find that any bounds of modesty traditionally observed by our society come secondary to my immediate need to provide nutrition for my daughter."

The response is direct and automatic (though she _does _adjust her shirt) but Hodgins picks up on the underlying tension so identical to his own, and he turns his attention to the child in his arms. "Shouldn't you be out arresting people with Booth?"

Brennan stiffens and settles on the couch across from where Hodgins stands. With the cease of motion, Christine begins to squirm uncomfortably in her lap.

"Shh. You are very demanding," Brennan chides softly. "I will not let you starve."

Hodgins chuckles. "Impatient suckers, aren't they?" Then he clears his throat. "And I mean that in the best and most appreciative way possible."

"Their understanding of the world outside themselves is limited," she agrees in her own way.

Hodgins places Michael on the floor and absently begins rolling a ball between them. "I'd die before hurting him. People don't get it; people like that guy. If they knew what it was like to be buried... to slowly run out of air..."

"I don't want to talk about this."

He shrugs. "You're already thinking about it. Just like I am. You know it, I know it, hell, the whole lab keeps staring at us because they know it too. I figure it can't make a difference whether we say it out loud or not at this point."

There's truth in what he says, but Brennan finds herself resisting regardless.

"They ran out of air quickly," she says instead.

Hodgins' gaze doesn't waver. "You and I both know that doesn't mean a thing."

He leaves her the room just before Christine begins to cry in earnest. When the baby turns away from Brennan's breast and continues to scream, only to latch on with particular force seconds later, Brennan can't help but feel as if she's being punished.

* * *

_It's dark. Black. No light can trickle in here and the panic climbs into her throat and gets stuck there. She almost screams but she bites it back as she recalls how futile it is to make noise. No one is coming. She pushes against the top of the trunk knowing it won't give and yet unable to be still. And then her hands brush against something slick and porous. Something she can quite literally identify while blind._

_Bones. Small bones. Small, human bones. Two sets. This is once instance in which she can know, without proof, that they belong to children who were three and five. That they are here because a bad drug trip caused their father to lash out at them in a fit of extreme paranoia. That they died scared and betrayed by someone who should have protected them at all costs. She curls herself in a ball and breathes. Tells herself that there __**is **__air. It's hot and humid and muggy but there's __**air**__, and if she survived this for two days over fifteen years ago, she can absolutely survive it now._

_Her hands find another set of remains in the dark. Small; smaller than the other two. She's memorised this skeleton. She carried it inside herself as it formed. She knows no features better than these... not even Booth's._

_She forgets her resolve to stay quiet, to keep calm, to rationally remember that she can and will survive this, and she kicks at the top of the trunk with all the force of someone who has gone beyond panic and has nothing left to lose._

_It's difficult to muster efficient force while being confined the way she is, but she's tenacious and the trunk begins to bend to her will. There's a sharp cracking noise but instead of being struck by blinding daylight she's showered with damp earth. She turns her face away and tries to clear her nose and throat, but the dirt is pouring in faster now and she can't breathe. Again._

_This isn't right. This isn't right. Some part of her terror-paralysed brain recognises that these images cannot be reconciled. The details are distorted. It isn't __**right**__._

Brennan wakes up on the couch panting furiously and soaked in sweat. Upstairs, the baby is crying.

She stumbles slightly in her haste to get off the couch and up the stairs; her equilibrium is still off from her recent dream state and she swallows against the lurching of her stomach.

Christine cuts herself off mid-scream the moment Brennan enters her line of sight and then begins to coo contently; Brennan smiles in spite of herself as her heart rate slowly drops down to normal.

"That's not nice," she murmurs, lifting her daughter out of the crib. "I am very much looking forward to when you can simply ask for company instead of behaving as if you're being tortured."

Christine grips the front of her shirt tightly and Brennan sniffs her soft skin, embracing the calming endorphins this triggers. It's only when she feels Christine's skin grow clammy, damp with sweat from her body, that Brennan remembers fractured pieces of her nightmare. Suffocation, panic... something about her daughter. She holds Christine closer. She needs to shower and wash away the feel of a grime she can't name, but she can't bring herself to put the baby back in the crib. In the end, she puts the playpen in the doorway between her bedroom and the bathroom. The draft from the open door eliminates most of the steam, and she steps under the spray confident that her daughter is nearby and comfortable.

She doesn't hear the front door open and close, marking Booth's arrival. She doesn't hear him shuffling around the bedroom as he changes his clothes. She doesn't take notice of the way Christine's babbling changes pitch once recognition sets in. But she hears the low murmurings of his voice as he engages their daughter.

"_Hey, kiddo. How you doing?"_

There's some more shuffling as Booth removes her from the portable pen, followed by a shriek of mild protest.

"_Don't be like that... here; let's get you turned around, huh?"_

More movement, and then the baby's contented sigh.

"_Just like your mother. You're not happy unless you can see everything going on around you."_

Brennan rinses the last of the conditioner from her hair and wipes the water out of her eyes before drawing back the curtain.

Booth grins at her from his seat on the floor. Christine smiles because he smiles.

She tries to return the gesture and fails.


	2. Chapter 2

Yeah. I dropped the ball with that whole, "I'll post later today," thing. Let's not any of us pretend to be surprised. My bad. (At least it was earlier than November this year, right Jenn? Right?)

* * *

_Gold teeth and gold jewelry;  
every piece of your dowry,  
throw them into the tomb with me;  
bury them with my name_

_**Montezuma, **__Fleet Foxes_

She dreams of terrible things, but there is no burying the fear and panic, no turning over and forcing herself back to sleep, no overdosing on caffeine and maintaining a neutral face for all to see, when she shares her bed – her house, her life – with another person.

So when Brennan jerks back into consciousness gasping, swallowing over and over again to banish the taste of dry earth, Booth jerks awake as well.

He doesn't touch her, because he doesn't always find that comforting and neither does she, but he watches her closely until her breathing slows.

"You okay?"

"Fine," Brennan answers gruffly, already pulling the blanket back up to her chin and facing away from him.

He takes a chance and rests his hand on her shoulder. She doesn't shrug off the contact, but she makes no attempt to lean into it either. "Bones."

"I'm sorry I woke you."

"You know I don't care about that."

Brennan shuts her eyes tightly and waits for him to just _take a hint _and leave her alone. Leave _this _alone. Because she loves him, she loves him so much, but she doesn't want to talk.

Booth dreams too. She suspects she doesn't always wake up when he does but she can invariably see it in the way he's not quite there the next morning. In the way he can smile and converse with her and their child and their team but he's _absent _when he doesn't think they are (_she _is) watching. He confides in her when and if he is ready and she does the same. They are good at respecting the other's privacy, at giving the other time, in this regard. They don't _push_.

At least, they aren't supposed to. For the last three days, Booth has done nothing but push and she is beginning to resent him for it.

He's warm and that unique combination of hard muscle and soft skin when he molds his front to her back and trails a hand over her stomach. She allows herself to nestle into the embrace this time because feeling his heartbeat helps her control her own.

"I don't know how to help you," he admits, his mouth so close to her ear the vibration tickles. "I don't know how to help you, and that worries me."

"They're just dreams, Booth," Brennan replies.

"It's not just the dreams." He pauses to measure his thoughts. "You have this look... it's like we're back at Taffet's trial. Only I didn't notice it until it was too late, then. And I'm afraid that one day soon it's going to be too late again."

They're both glad it's too dark to see more than faint outlines of the other.

Booth's words rest in the air until Brennan shifts in his arms and pulls the blanket higher, warding off the sudden and uncomfortable feeling of cold.

"I'll be fine, Booth. I'm always fine."

"I just-

"I'm tired," she says softly. "Let's just sleep."

He doesn't doubt that she's tired; exhausted even. He can't remember the last time she's slept through the night.

He's been pretending he doesn't hear her slip from their bed, and then the next morning he wakes her up in the nursery, in the living room, in the kitchen – wherever she is when she eventually succumbs to sleep – and waits for the cycle to repeat itself. Only, it's become too difficult to pretend.

Her wall is up and he debates whether or not it would be worthwhile to try again. Whether that would ultimately result in her simply leaving both the conversation and the room. It's not something either one of them does especially often, now, but old habits die hard.

She breathes deeply, inhaling and exhaling in time with him. He's just about to speak when the rhythm of her breaths slips into a more natural pattern he recognises, and alerts him to the fact that she's managed to fall back asleep.

Booth heaves a soft sigh and pulls his arm from beneath her when it begins to go numb.

* * *

The sun is far too bright when Brennan wakes up the next morning. Heart in throat, she realises it's well past nine and she's well past late for work. There's no answer when she yells for Booth, and a quick tour of the house confirms that he's already left and taken Christine with him.

The anger begins building slowly from this moment, but she keeps it tightly leashed while she changes. While she calls Cam. She's close to exploding by the time she phones Booth, and when he doesn't answer her call – ignores it, she's sure – she very much wants to throw something.

Instead, she settles for angrily texting a single word.

_Coward_.

Her phone pings less than a minute later.

_I'm in a meeting, Bones_.

She's been too tired to feel anything besides resignation this past week, but a few solid hours of sleep allows her the energy required to sustain misplaced anger. And that anger just keeps picking up speed.

The phone pings again and there's another message from Booth, even though she hadn't bothered to respond to the last one.

_I tried to wake you up. Twice._

She can read his annoyance and it sends a similar jolt of irritation charging through her. Because Booth being mad when _she's _the one with something to be mad about is _irritating_.

Maybe Christine had been cranky or he had been late or there had been traffic or he had simply reached the last of his patience for her and this particular crisis. Whatever the reason, it's clear to her that Booth will not be taking her anger in stride today.

She doesn't respond. Not because she doesn't want to, but because she wants to _so much _and that usually means whatever she says in the moment will be too irrational – too much like something _he _would say – for her pride to allow it.

This seems to suit Booth just fine, because for the rest of the morning, he doesn't call or text her again either.

* * *

There's a new case. It's not the worst they've seen, but there is more than one body and the crime scene stretches a mile, and it turns into a full team effort. Squints, Angela and squinterns all do their part.

At first.

They're an hour in when everything goes to hell.

Cam has noticed clear tensions; Angela and Hodgins are mostly quiet, save for some well timed sniping. Booth and Brennan are distant. Polite.

She's learned how very dangerous it can be when they're polite.

But they're all acting with the utmost professionalism when they arrive on the scene and sometimes that's a rarity on the best of days, so Cam ignores her instincts. She gives them their space. And when the first raised voice reaches her ears, she regrets it.

"Cause of death, Bones. Come on."

"I'm _looking_," Brennan replies. "Stop _pushing_, Booth. It doesn't help. It never helps."

Cam's eyes go skyward and she waits to see if this is going to escalate, but Brennan and Booth are still glaring at one another when a second yelling match begins.

"I know how to do my job, Hodgins. I really don't need your instructions."

Hodgins' reply is softer, slower, but there's the beginning of an edge to his tone as well. "I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job, Angie. But I can't concentrate with you standing so close to me."

His calmness adds to her fire; Angela tries to bait him and Hodgins answers in measured, rational tones without even looking her in the eye, and Cam is afraid for a half second that the artist might just crack him over the head with her camera.

Angela is loud, Booth and Brennan are louder, and Cam is momentarily stunned because she's never been forced to try and fight this war on two fronts. And shouldn't they be _past _this by now? What with all the marriage and babies and shared dwellings, she should be able to go a few months in a row without acting as kindergarten teacher.

The voices get louder. But the couples aren't standing close to one another and Cam is forced to tackle one half of the problem at a time.

She chooses the agent and the anthropologist. Because they're always at the centre of the worst (read, most public) throwdowns.

"Any chance I can get you two to put this on hold until you get home?" she asks through a smile and gritted teeth.

Their mouths clamp shut, and she's too preoccupied to see the humour in the way they can still manage to do these little things in sync despite being furious with one another. Hodgins and Angela don't block out the world outside themselves the way the partners do in instances such as these, and when they can no longer hear Booth and Brennan, they silence themselves before Cam can make it across the field. But it doesn't stop her from issuing a reprimand.

"A little professionalism, people. Please."

Angela mutters something under breath that sounds suspiciously like 'bite me,' and Cam chooses to believe that the comment is directed at Hodgins. Though it's really anyone's guess.

The interns have long since become adept at interpreting the moods of the department staff and adjusting their own behaviour accordingly, and silence reigns across the crime scene from this moment on. Cam welcomes the quiet, but she doesn't actually relax until her disgruntled employees (plus Booth) have shut their car doors and driven away.

By the time she reaches the lab, everyone with an office has barricaded themselves behind closed doors and the interns are milling about the platform, eager for the arrival of her and the body so that they can once again busy their hands and (hopefully) avoid all lines of fire.

It's deathly quiet and she assumes that this is because her star employees are all in their separate corners, sulking and pouring unresolved aggression into the work at hand.

Until something crashes.

She closes her eyes because she's worked here long enough (worked with _Hodgins_ long enough) to recognise this as the – budget murdering – sound of something very expensive breaking.

"_Seriously, Hodgins? You have your __**own**__ office to destroy! Stay out of mine!"_

"_How was I supposed to know that would happen?"_

Hodgins comes charging out of Angela's office looking somewhat harried, freezes momentarily when he sees Cam, and then jumps to speak before she gets the chance. "It was an accident, Cam."

"What, exactly, was an accident?"

"Don't worry about it. I'll pay for it."

He's moving quickly down the hallway, but she yells at his retreating frame. "You bet your ass you will, Dr. Hodgins. There's-

-no room left in the budget. Yeah, Cam. I got it."

Outside Angela's closed door, she takes a breath before turning the handle and marching into battle.

"Door's closed for a reason, Cam," Angela comments evenly without taking her eyes off the giant screen in front of her.

"You need to go home."

"Excuse me?" Angela gives her boss her full attention and raises her chin.

"Take Michael, take your photos and your program, and go home." Angela begins to interrupt and Cam raises a hand. "I need you. And I need Hodgins. And Booth and Brennan. If we can't work as a team right now, we need to at least be able to work as individuals. Booth and Dr. Brennan work in separate buildings – and thank God for that – but you and Hodgins are, for the most part, stuck here. Hodgins needs to be in the lab right now; you do not. Go home. Play with your child. Get some work done. Cool off. Tomorrow, please be prepared to go the whole work day without tossing around multimillion dollar equipment."

Angela glares for a moment. Then she stuffs her computer and an assortment of flashdrives into her bag before snatching up her coat and storming out the door. She turns off the lights with a heavy hand as she exits and leaves Cam standing in the dark.

* * *

Booth calls Brennan from the daycare centre to ask if she's coming home, instead of following the usual pattern of heading up to the lab with Christine in tow to ask her in person.

Space. There are days when they still need so much space.

There's plenty of work to be done, but she meets him downstairs. Because she misses her child and she needs to see her at least once before Booth takes her home. And feeds her. Plays with her. Cuddles her and puts her to bed. All before Brennan leaves the building.

(she compartmentalises the emotions this triggers before she reaches him, because the last thing she wants to do when they are both in this mood is pick another fight with him over this particular thing they cannot control)

Booth murmurs something in Christine's ear as she comes around the corner, and Brennan's smile is immediate when Christine spots her and reaches forward.

"There's breast milk in the freezer," she tells him as she smoothes a hand over her daughter's fine hair.

"I know, Bones."

His voice is soft and understanding – a total contrast to the clipped tone from only a few hours ago – and it makes this harder than it is when he's near his wit's end with her. She clears her throat as her eyes begin to itch and carefully delivers Christine back into his ready arms.

He winks and she places a soft kiss on his cheek – because that's as much as she can manage right now – and they declare a truce.

"I really did try to wake you up this morning," Booth says.

Brennan nods. "I believe you."

He studies her and she shifts uncomfortably, and though the ceasefire holds, she hears the resignation in his tone when he tells her he'll see her at home.

* * *

At 3:00am, she's still in the lab. Brennan doesn't even notice the time until Hodgins knocks softly on the open door.

She blinks as she's brought back to her surroundings. "Hodgins. Why are you still here?"

"I could ask you the same thing, Dr. B." He steps into the room with his hands buried deep in the pockets of his lab coat. "Come on."

Brennan frowns. "Where are we going?"

"Back to hell."

There's the same resignation she had heard in Booth's voice earlier. That she's heard in her own voice over and over this past week.

"I don't believe in hell. And you don't either."

To her surprise, this brings a full-fledged grin to Hodgins' face.

"We don't, do we?"

"No. I believe I just said that."

The smile grows. "Then let's get out of here."

* * *

Hodgins is quiet as they drive and Brennan is too lost in her own thoughts to take active notice, but then she recognises a road.

Her head whips away from her window to stare at him incredulously, but he's careful not to meet her eye. His jaw clenches tighter and tighter as they drive, and it feels to her as if her stomach does as well.

"Take me home," she demands coolly.

Hodgins shakes his head. "No can do."

She hadn't been expecting that.

"Take me home, Hodgins. Now."

He ignores her protests. The drive continues for what seems like both hours and mere seconds all at once, but by the time they reach their destination, she's no longer fighting him.

When Hodgins kills the engine, they sit in silence and think back to the hours they had spent here a lifetime ago.

Brennan is the first to speak.

"We're trespassing, you know," she states offhandedly. "Booth is going to be very upset if he has to bail me out of jail again."

Hodgins laughs and the thick tension eases slightly. "You don't have to worry about that."

"He told me that the next time I get arrested, he's leaving me in the cell overnight," she continues. "I'm not certain he doesn't mean it."

"_Dr. Brennan_," Hodgins pretends to be shocked. "Are you telling me you're _afraid _of the police?"

"What? No. That's not what I'm saying at all."

"My how you've changed."

He gets out of the car before Brennan can respond and she hurries to follow close behind, and as they begin to scale a beaten down fence that probably hasn't been moved since their last time here, Brennan gets her word in.

"I'm not afraid," she huffs. "I'm merely questioning whether it's worth risking arrest to break the law and return _here_, of all places."

"We're not breaking any laws," Hodgins finally assures her. "I bought this place years ago. And all the companies that have anything to do with it."

Brennan stares at him and it's clear she suspects he's lost his mind. "Why would you do that?"

Hodgins shrugs. "Something big happened here. I hated the thought of it just... moving on before I could."

"Have you moved on?" Brennan asks tentatively.

The smile reappears. "Oh, we're moving on tonight, baby."

Her grin matches his when he then goes on to reassure her that 'baby' had merely been a reflex.

* * *

They find high ground and sit in the cool dust as they look over the quarry. It's still dark outside save for the select spaces illuminated by security lights. Brennan's knees are drawn up into her chest, and she allows the quiet to calm her.

There is air here. There is space. She is not underground and she can breathe.

"The Gravedigger took Booth," she offers eventually, though she doesn't take her eyes away from the faint outline of the car far out in the distance. "He was alone. I don't understand why this is occasionally still difficult. It makes no rational sense."

Hodgins doesn't mention the fact that Booth is a soldier or that she is a scientist or that each and every one of them possesses their own trauma, their own burden, that they just can't _shake_. Because the facts change nothing.

"She's dead," he says instead. "And I'm still _angry_. I don't think I've managed to be quite comfortable driving by a quarry or getting stuck in a small space since."

"I hate quarries. Again, it isn't rational, but I _hate _them."

"I hear ya."

Before she can comment, Hodgins clears his throat and removes something that looks suspiciously like a detonator from his pocket.

"What are you doing?" Brennan asks warily, instinctively shifting away from him.

"Alright, I know I've earned myself a little bit of a reputation for playing my ideas fast and loose, but give me a little credit, okay? I'm a scientist."

Brennan doesn't relax. Eventually Hodgins gets tired of waiting for her vote of confidence and sighs.

"We blew our way free once, right? I say we try doing it again."

Her lips quirk upward to form a crooked smile. "We can't blow up all the quarries in the country, Hodgins."

"No," his half smile matches her own, "but we can blow up this one."

* * *

Her heart pounds. But this is the fourth explosion in a minute and the spikes in adrenaline are causing her to giggle through what she refuses to acknowledge as fear.

"Pretty great, huh?" Hodgins glances at her before pushing a button and sending another explosion of colour firing into the sky. "They are _so _much more impressive when you make them yourself."

"I do not fully understand what sort of lasting therapeutic effect you expect this to have on us, but… yes. It's very beautiful."

"Well, maybe it won't last. But I feel better right now than I have since our last case."

Instead of agreeing or disagreeing, Brennan extends her hand, palm up. "I would like to try."

"Oh, absolutely!"

She hasn't been here in over half a decade, and though she has often calmly, rationally repeated to herself that it is merely a place, holding no greater or lesser significance than any other place, as the sky changes colour again and again, for perhaps the first time she begins to truly believe it.

Perspective.

They're feeling relaxed and Hodgins' supply of fireworks seems endless. When the sky lightens a shade, when it is dark but there is no longer such an absence of light that they can barely find one another, they are lost in their own thoughts. They don't notice how much time has passed until their solitude is treaded upon with all the subtleties expected of their emotionally driven counterparts.

"Jack Hodgins, you're a dead man."

"What the hell are you two doing?"

Both scientists startle and Brennan instinctively pushes the detonator – quickly and forcefully – into Hodgins' hands. Because there is no honour among thieves. Or something like that.

Booth stares suspiciously at the device and repeats himself. "Seriously. What the hell are you doing?"

His hand is still hovering readily over his service weapon and Brennan wonders if he's even aware of this. Guiltily, she stands and brushes away the dust that's settled in her clothes.

"We lost track of time."

Angela raises an eyebrow incredulously. "Lost track of… Brennan, it is nearly six o'clock in the morning."

"Look, Angie-

"Don't 'Angie' me, Hodgins. Not when I'm about to kick your ass."

Brennan slowly puts her hand over Booth's and he looks down to follow her movement before eventually relaxing his fingers and entangling them with hers. The guilt intensifies. Because she knows that if their positions were reversed she would be furious with him, and yet when she is preoccupied she can never think of these details until much too late.

But the anger will come later (it is almost always _later _with them). Now he is too relieved to find her safe and above ground to do anything other than pull her tightly against his chest.

The Gravedigger is dead, and Brennan realises that Heather Taffet has left lasting marks on more people than Hodgins and herself.

It's the burden of loving and being loved.

"Angela tracked the GPS on Hodgins' car when we couldn't get a hold of either of you," Booth murmurs into her hair. "Of all the places to have to go looking for you… you're gonna give me a heart attack one of these days, Bones."

There's no real ire in his words and Brennan presses her face into his t-shirt. "I know I haven't been easy to live with as of late."

"It's not about that. Neither of us are particularly easy to live with on the best of days."

"You're mad."

"I'm a little mad, Bones, yeah."

She tightens her grip on him and plays with the hair at the nape of his neck. "Can you be 'a little mad,' later?" she asks hopefully.

A chuckle escapes, though she can tell he tries to hold it back. "Yeah. I suppose I could do that."

She's suddenly so _tired_, and Booth's arm tightens around her waist as she stumbles slightly. "I think I'll sleep tonight," she mumbles into his shoulder.

The chuckle is a little more pronounced this time. "I'm sure you will. You're due back at work in a couple hours." She makes a small and pitiful noise of displeasure and it's so unlike her, Booth can't help but laugh again. "That's what you get for staying out partying until six am like some college kid."

Brennan pulls herself together. "You're right. This was incredibly irresponsible of us."

"On about fifty different levels," Booth agrees.

"You two dummies ready to go home?"

Angela's voice brings two conversations to one and Brennan looks up to find the artist staring pointedly at her and Hodgins.

She blinks. As she's noticed has a tendency to happen when Booth is around, she's nearly forgotten that there are others present.

Before she can answer, however, Hodgins speaks first.

"Ten more minutes." He gives Angela a look that Brennan thinks her friend will have a very difficult time resisting. "It'd be a shame to waste the rest of these."

He brandishes the detonator and Angela closes a hand around it at the same time as Booth takes a step back.

"No trust," Hodgins mutters. "None."

"Can you blame us?" Booth shoots back.

"Ten minutes," Angela sighs. "And not a minute longer, Hodgins. This place creeps me out."

Booth appears to be on the fence and Brennan draws his attention before he can protest outright.

"Please?"

It's the sincerity that grabs him, though after all this time together she has yet to grasp this. And though he sighs dramatically, he settles in the dirt.

The sky has lightened considerably, but the fireworks are still bright and beautiful and pleasing to the four adults on the top of a manmade hill.

Ten minutes bleeds into half an hour and as the sun comes up, no one seems to notice that they've long since run out of firepower.

Angela makes an absent comment regarding a particular shade of orange in the sky and within minutes, a spirited discussion begins.

Something about rainbows.

Brennan hasn't been following close enough to understand the series of jumps that have brought the conversation to this place, but Booth, Angela and Hodgins all appear quite committed to their arguments.

Booth's hand doesn't stray from hers (even as he accuses Hodgins of killing everything with science) and Brennan is reminded that, now, she is only ever alone for as long as she wants to be.

(and sometimes, not even that long)

"We should go back," she says.

It's not until they all stare at her that she realises she has cut right into the middle of the conversation. The moment is broken and there's this irrational part of her that wants to undo the words. To go back to observing these people who have become her family, knowing all the while that she can become a part of the scene whenever she so desires.

But the sun is rising higher and they have a case to solve. Victims with familes awaiting a kind of closure she isn't sure she will ever have.

Booth squeezes her hand before standing, and she doesn't miss the way he winces before wiping his face clean and clapping his hands together. "Alright, squints. Let's get this show on the road."

Angela and Hodgins walk a few feet in front of them and Brennan slips a finger through the nearest belt loop of Booth's jeans.

"I can fix your back when we get to the truck."

"It'll loosen up," he responds with carefully constructed indifference.

"Or I could just fix it for you."

He pulls her into his side and they fall easily into a practiced step. "You're pretty handy, you know that?"

"I believe you may have mentioned it before," she answers a tad smugly.

"It's the only reason I keep you around."

Brennan indignantly (and none-too-gently) pinches the skin covering the side of his ribcage, then smiles with satisfaction when her actions draw a small yelp of pain.

Booth glares at her and she stifles a laugh, and she knows, without a doubt, that tonight she will sleep.

**-END-**


End file.
